


Bad Decision Courtship Ink

by theleaveswant



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Batarians, Extended Scene, F/M, Flirting, Hit With A Clue-By-Four, POV Outsider, Relationship Advice, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-18
Updated: 2015-02-18
Packaged: 2018-03-13 16:37:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3388730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theleaveswant/pseuds/theleaveswant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Extended version of the scene in refugee housing when James gets his N7 ink; Batarian tattoo artist hits James with a clue hammer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bad Decision Courtship Ink

Vrin's in the middle of sketching up some new flash for the shop—lotta demand for images of damaged Reapers these days, surprise surprise—and the petulant hush that washes through the bay tells her more about who's walked up to the container door than looking up could anyway. "Alliance," she says, more announcement than question.

"Uh, yeah." Deep voice for a human, so probably male. "Are you Vrin?"

"What do you want?"

Shy human, apparently, from the hesitation. "You . . . do tattoos?"

No, actually, this crap's all here just to look cool. Vrin looks up from her sketching interface and repeats, carefully isolating each syllable: "What do you want?"

Yep, male, human, and a rather robust specimen at that. Gray-work poking out around his civ-dress shirt means he probably won't wuss out once the needle's going. 

"Oh, you mean what do I want done?" Vrin smiles politely. "Right. Well, uh . . ." The human quickly pulls up an image on his omnitool and passes it to her. "This, between my shoulder blades, plus more of these stripes around it to, y'know, tie the whole thing together." A second picture—doodle, really—hints at scale and situation.

Vrin squints at the image, then nods and starts pulling supplies out of the cart. "Siddown." Vrin recognizes the logo in the first image, knows it belongs to some kind of elite subset of human marines. If Doug were here he'd press the guy for proof that he deserved to wear the symbol before ever wetting a needle. Vrin couldn't give half a shit.

The human strips off his shirt and takes a seat on the box Vrin kicks towards him. Vrin's pleased to see that she doesn't have to shave this one; the pinky-brown back skin is unsullied by any of that nasty curly human fur. Gloves on before she touches him, and a generous wash of disinfectant to clean off his typically human oiliness before she gets to work. 

"How's that?" Vrin asks, sending the human's omnitool a view of his back, positioning the holo template for the logo portion of the design between the points of his shoulder bones.

"Little higher?" Vrin moves the holo. "Perfect."

Vrin prepares to start mixing inks. "You want it the regular way—black letters, red . . . triangle?"

"No, all black. Solid." 

Good thing Vrin hadn't uncapped the red yet.

"Okiedokie." Vrin fits a fresh needle head on her tattoo machine and checks the barriers that keep fluid splatter off her hands and the body of the machine, then leans in to start laying outlines. "Breathe slow."

Turns out to be a pretty good canvas, this human. Occasional grunts but no squirming or whining, and it takes him a good seven minutes to crack and start making smalltalk.

"You get a lot of business down here?"

"Enough, for now." Vrin dips her needle tip and starts another line. "Got a buddy in Tayseri ward sends me some referrals. Human, actually. Ex-Alliance."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah, we started at the same shop on Omega before he took off for the Citadel. Still sure you want the whole thing black? I'm about to start the corner bit."

"Yeah, yeah. Keep going. I guess you stuck it out on Omega?"

"Up until those Cerberus asswipes moved in."

The human makes a "yech" noise. "Those pendejos."

"Absofuckin'lutely." Whatever that means. Vrin grabs a disposable towel to clean off the smeared ink and blood so she can see how it's coming. "Had to kick a few teeth in to get a decent spot down here, mostly uptight traditionalists didn't approve of women business-owners."

"Wait, you're a—" Vrin doesn't have to see the human's face to know he's frowning. "I'm sorry, I didn't realize you were . . ."

"Humans rarely do." If Vrin's a little rougher than she needs to be on the next wipe, well.

"I guess I don't really know that much about batarians. I mean I've met a lot but I never really tried to learn . . ."

"Why would you?" Vrin drops the needle she's been using in the disposal and fits a fatter one, faster for shading and coloring in.

"Well," the human starts, then grunts when Vrin resumes inking.

Another human approaches—one who's not popular here, from the grumbling, though there seem to be some dissenting opinions.

"James."

Vrin flicks a glance at the new human—smaller and asari-shaped, presumably female—and goes back to work, amused at how her customer's skin heats up when he looks. She wonders idly if the humans would get confused if their males and females didn't tend to look so different, and if they might have difficulty reproducing.

"Commander. What brings you down here?"

"I was about to ask you that." The female settles into a relaxed stance opposite the door of Vrin's container.

"Well, after our little chat—ah!" The male, 'James', flinches when Vrin's needle pierces the skin directly over his spinal column. "I made up my mind. I'm gonna join the N7 program."

"And you're celebrating by getting a tattoo?" Female human clearly thinks this adorable.

They blahbityblah about channels and training and mirrors for a bit, and the male sasses back in ways an inferior officer in the Hegemony could never get away with. Vrin's only half listening until she sees the female gesture at her, or her task, in her peripheral vision. 

"You know, that's going to sting for a few days. You gonna be ready for duty?"

"Always. Hey, maybe we should get matching!" 

Vrin smirks. Sure, the more the merrier—no group discounts.

"You want me to get an N7 tattoo?"

"N7, sure. Or you could get my name done . . . somewhere special." 

Vrin chuckles quietly at the way the male's heart rate spikes just saying that, and prepares to offer the female a deal on the inevitable cover-up. Courting humans make _bad_ decisions.

The female shifts her weight and her voice goes warm-gooey: human mating call. Maybe bad decision courtship ink is in her future after all? "You are such a tease, Vega." 

"Who, me?"

"You ever going to make good on all this flirting?"

"Uhh . . ." Vrin sighs and wipes her progress, waiting for the customer to stop tensing up like that. "I was just—I didn't mean to . . . y'know. I was just—"

The female laughs a face-saving laugh and turns to leave. "That's what I thought. Later, Lieutenant."

"Later—ah, careful!" The male twitches when Vrin goes back to work. 

"Smooth," Vrin observes.

"Yeah, thanks." James sighs. "That's my commanding officer, by the way. She's not—we were just goofing around."

"Are you sure of that? I'm just about done with this middle part."

"Sweet," he says, and Vrin can feel him frown again. "What do you mean, am I sure of that?"

Vrin gestures over his shoulder the direction his CO had gone with her machine before filling in the last missed spots on this part of the tattoo. "That was disappointment."

"What?"

"Dis-a-ppoint-ment." Vrin docks the machine and steps back, pulling up her omni display to start working out the design for the stripey bits.

"No, I don't . . ." James twists around in his seat, barely wincing when the movement stretches his perforated skin. "Seriously, what are you talking about?"

"Wasn't even well-concealed disappointment, I think. You can't read human body language?"

"Of course I can read human body language. I just have no idea what you're trying to suggest."

"You turned down her courtship signals. How's that?"

"Looks great, but court—You're messing with me, right? You didn't really see anything." James frowns up at Vrin suspiciously.

"I can send somebody to go bring her back here, you want to ask for yourself." 

"No, God! Let her go." James rubs that eerily smooth forehead. "You really think she's into me, like . . . _in_ to me?"

"Pretty certain, yeah." Vrin folds her arms. "You wanna put a deposit on the rest of this and come back later?"

"No. No, let's get it over with. You swear you're not just messing with me?"

"Hold still, twitchy. Why would I want to do that?"

" . . . Because the Alliance blew up a batarian mass relay?"

Vrin shrugs. "Didn't kill anybody I knew. At least, nobody worth missing." She frowns, fiddling with the placement of the holo. "You gonna pass out if I start inking again now?"

"Fuck no, I just . . . You've given me a lot to think about."

Vrin snorts and fires up the machine. "Yeah, well. Sorting out aliens' love lives is a service I don't usually offer, as it happens, so I hope that'll be reflected in my tip."

James grunts. "Not so sure about the 'sorting out' part," he mutters, but he stows the complaints when Vrin presses the moving needle back into his skin, and he does leave her a respectable tip.

**Author's Note:**

> Has no bearing here but the "buddy" Vrin refers to, Doug, is Doug Anderson from Fight Quest and the Fight Quest-Mass Effect fusion vignettes I may or may not get around to writing.


End file.
